Step 1 in the Democrats’ plan for what some wags have called the “Californication” of America has now passed the US House of Representatives on a party line vote.

HR 1 is so bad that not even the usual RINOs would vote for it, so that gives you some flavor of what a disaster for constitutional liberty the bill would be if it became law.

The proposal -- nearly 700 pages -- calls for Election Day to be designated a federal holiday, requires all states to offer automatic voter registration, restores voting rights to convicted felons, institutes independent redistricting commissions to weed out gerrymandering and requires nonprofit organizations to disclose the names of donors who contribute more than $10,000 in an effort to rein in dark-money groups.

The bill also requires the sitting president and vice president to release 10 years of federal tax returns, as well as presidential candidates.

“This bill is a massive federal government takeover that would undermine the integrity of our elections,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, (CA-23), said Friday according to Fox News.

The legislation has almost no chance of passing in the Senate reports Fox. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, has indicated he will not bring the bill for a vote, effectively killing the bill.

"We know this bill is not going to be signed into law," said Illinois Rep. Rodney Davis (IL-13), the ranking Republican on the House subcommittee on elections, on the House floor before the vote. "This bill is nothing but a bill that is for loading billions of billions of dollars into the coffers of members of Congress."

From our perspective, the bill is not “for the people” so much as it is for the Far-Left Progressive special interest groups and incumbent Democrat politicians.

And, it crushes free speech.

Our friends at the Institute for Free Speech released an exhaustive analysis of three speech-chilling sections of HR 1. Those provisions would regulate political speech on the Internet, violate the privacy of advocacy groups and their supporters, and compel speakers to include lengthy government-mandated messages in their communications.

"By making it harder for Americans to speak about government, a better title for the bill would be the 'For the Politicians Act,'" said Institute for Free Speech President David Keating.

The Institute's analysis finds these sections of H.R. 1 would benefit politicians and campaign finance attorneys while harming the public. The legislation's many restrictions and regulations on speakers would make it harder for Americans to promote ideas about government and to hold elected officials accountable. H.R. 1 would also subject speakers to increased costs from legal and administrative compliance, liability risk, and would harm donor and associational privacy for civic groups that speak about policy issues and politicians.

"H.R. 1 appears to be a slapdash effort to stitch together every unworkable and unconstitutional idea from the past decade about how to increase regulation of Americans' free speech rights," said Institute for Free Speech Senior Fellow Eric Wang. "While the bill may be dead on arrival, it is nonetheless a deeply troubling statement of Congress's priorities and attitudes towards the First Amendment."

Among other outcomes, HR 1's speech regulations would:

Unconstitutionally regulate speech that mentions a federal candidate or elected official at any time under a severely vague, subjective, and broad standard that asks whether the speech "promotes," "attacks," "supports," or "opposes" ("PASO") the candidate or official.

Compel groups to file so-called "campaign-related disbursement" reports with the Federal Election Commission declaring that their ads are either "in support of or in opposition" to the elected official mentioned, even if their ads do neither.

Force groups to publicly identify certain donors on these reports for issue ads and on the face of the ads themselves. In many cases, these donors would not have given a cent to support the ads.

Force organizations that make grants to file their own reports and publicly identify their own donors if an organization is deemed to have "reason to know" that a donee entity has made or will make "campaign-related disbursements."

Disproportionately burden the political speech rights of corporations, thereby ending the long-standing parity in the campaign finance law between corporations and unions.

Expand the universe of regulated online political speech beyond paid advertising to include, apparently, communications on groups' or individuals' own websites and e-mail messages.

Impose a new and constitutionally dubious public reporting requirement on sponsors of online issue ads by expanding the "public file" requirement for broadcast, cable, and satellite media ads to many online platforms.

Impose inflexible disclaimer requirements on online ads that may make many forms of small, popular, and cost-effective ads off-limits for political advertisers.

While crushing the free speech rights of outsider candidates and interest groups is the most obvious problem with the bill Democrats have cast as an “anti-corruption” measure there is another long-time Democrat agenda item hidden in the bill: public financing of congressional and presidential campaigns.

The program is based on Maryland Rep. John Sarbanes’s “Government By the People Act of 2017,” and would offer subsidies for individuals who want to make small contributions to political candidates. And eligible candidates would qualify for matching contributions that vary based on a candidate’s agreement to restrictions on how they finance their campaigns.

Combined with the broad surge of small-dollar contributions — Democrats alone raised more than $1 billion that way in 2018 — the public financing system would dramatically reshape the political economy of federal politics wrote Lacy.

Participating candidates would be entitled to a 6 to 1 match of the amount they receive in small-dollar contributions. If candidates agree to further financial restrictions outlined in the bill the match they’re entitled to would increase.

The toll-free Capitol Switchboard is (1-866-220-0044) we urge CHQ readers and friends to call Senator McConnell TODAY to tell him you oppose HR 1 and urge him to keep his promise not to bring it to the floor for a vote.